The Victors
by theycallherdarling
Summary: "And no one in this arena was a victor by chance." The story of the 24 tributes in the 3rd Quarter Quell and their final moments in their respective Hunger Games.
1. Gloss

A/N: I've been playing with this idea for a while, and I just decided to go with it. THG is all from Katniss' POV, so it makes sense that she doesn't know absolutely everything about everyone...but sometimes I wish she did. This story is an attempt to quell my hunger for character back-stories (pun intended).

Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and all of its characters are owned by the lovely Suzanne Collins. I'm simply borrowing them for the time being.**  
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**Gloss**

_One more kill_.

He had counted the cannon blasts carefully, kept his eyes trained on the sky when he heard the music and saw the Capitol seal shine overhead. It wasn't typical of someone with his training to be so observant of the other tributes, but Gloss had spent his time in the Capitol memorizing faces, skills, training scores, and anything else that would be of use to him in the arena. It made him a more adept killer, in his opinion. His former allies, his district partner and the partners from 2 and 4, had spent their time crashing through the arena, killing anything that moved.

It worked for a while, he'd give them that: the Gamemakers were obviously enjoying the blood bath and he knew that the 15 tribute slaughter at the Cornucopia would be the topic of discussion for years to come. The landscape of the arena wasn't like anything he'd ever seen in District 1, it was something like a _conan_ or a _canon_, a word he had learned in school but couldn't quite remember. Gloss had spent more of his life training to compete in the Hunger Games than doing schoolwork after all, so he wasn't too surprised. He just knew that the arena was mostly flat and littered with cliffs and drop-offs that led to beds of sharp rocks below. The blazing sun always seemed to glow a little bit brighter after a kill and he figured it was because the Gamemakers liked the way the blood looked when it spilled across the rocks.

There were caves here and there, like the one he was sitting in at the moment, the one that he used to share with his former allies until it got down to the final eight and they had all turned on each other. The boy from 2 had suggested they divide all the supplies, split up, and give each other a fair chance. He had barely finished his suggestion when Gloss' district partner stabbed him in the throat and set them all off. Every camera must have been on them then in that tiny cave, blades flashing, blood flying, the canon blasting four times in quick succession before it was only Gloss and the girl from 4 who was struggling to stay on her feet while she slowly bled out from the gash in her stomach.

It had been two days since then, two days since he had kicked their bodies out to be collected by the hovercrafts, and everything in the cave was still covered in their blood. There was no reason for him to leave when all of the Cornucopia's supplies lay stacked beside him. Gloss was fine with staying put; a large hook was stuck through his leg, the last thing the boy from 4 had ever done in this life, and Gloss wasn't as quick on his feet as he used to be. It was hard to look at, but he dare not take it out and risk bleeding uncontrollably. They'd fix it in the Capitol once he won.

As if on cue, he had heard the cannon fire, signaling that he was one kill away from glory, fame, everything he had wanted when he volunteered at the reaping.

All he had to figure out was who his final opponent was: the girl from 6 or the boy from 9. If the tribute had died of thirst, it would have likely been the boy. The girl was young and small, but she was fast and clever. The only time he had seen her in the arena was when she had run away from the Cornucopia and disappeared off the nearest cliff. Gloss thought she had fallen, died, smashed to pieces on the rocks below, but her face hadn't appeared in the sky that night or any night after that. But if the boy from 9 had somehow caught her, he could have easily killed her; he was big for someone from one of the poorer districts. He killed his fair share on that first day by the Cornucopia, only escaping when the boy from 2's spear missed him by an inch.

There was rustling outside the cave and Gloss' head immediately snapped towards the sound. He took one last gulp of water from the canteen and then tossed it aside before finally standing and walking towards to mouth of the cave. The sun was high in the sky and heat was almost suffocating; it was the Gamemakers' way of framing the final showdown of the games, to ensure that it would be as excruciating as possible. Gloss didn't mind, of course, not when more blood and more sweat brought greater glory.

It was the boy from 9 after all. He was standing about a hundred yards from the mouth of the cave, naked save for his underwear and covered in dirt and blood. Gloss felt his nose wrinkle in disgust. He was covered in blood as well, of course, but he would never be as barbaric as to strip down and crash through the arena like a savage. It was embarrassing.

"It's just you and me," Gloss heard the boy call. He sounded drunk, but Gloss knew he was weak with hunger and thirst. It was a miracle he had even made it to the cave in the first place.

Gloss flashed one of his signature smiles, knowing the camera would be focused on him. "Not for long."

He was slower than he used to be, but still faster than the half-dead boy from 9. Gloss had halved the distance between them, dagger out, before the other tribute even realized he had moved. Surprisingly enough, he seemed to pull himself together at the last second and slashed his arm through the air, knocking Gloss' dagger out of his hand and across the face of the cliff.

Gloss ducked a second swing that was aimed for his head and dove for the fallen weapon. The boy from 9 had gotten a decent training score, but his punches were predictable and easy to block.

Suddenly Gloss felt the air fly rapidly from his lungs and he realized that the boy had tackled him to the ground, something Gloss had never seen him do before. With a jolt in his stomach, he realized that he had miscalculated: the tribute boy's desperation had broken his predictability, and all Gloss could do was wildly wiggle his fingers towards the dagger that still lay just out of his reach.

The boy from 9 lifted himself off of Gloss slightly to reach for the dagger himself and Gloss forced all his weight to one side, sending them rolling away from the dagger. It wasn't until they stopped, Gloss still pinned underneath the other tribute, that he realized they were only a few feet away from the edge of the cliff.

Weaponless, the tribute boy released his grip on Gloss' wrists and wrapped his fingers around his neck instead, cutting off his air. The boy was screaming now, and it was clear from the blaze in his eyes that he had come completely unhinged.

Spots appeared in Gloss' vision, but he refused to let fear cloud his thoughts. It wasn't going to end like this. He refused to die by the hands of this animal, refused to be a disgrace to his family and his district. He had been training all his life for this moment.

_Just one more kill_.

The world around him was starting to go dark and the screams were getting softer, but Gloss was able to concentrate all of the strength he had left into one final attack. Two of his fingers shot out and he buried them into the tribute's neck, just below his Adam's apple. Surprised and unable to breath, the boy from 9 loosened his grip on Gloss' neck as a loud choke escaped his throat. In one swift motion, Gloss grabbed the tribute by the arms, lifted his knee, and rocked backwards, throwing the boy from 9 off of him.

There was a sound of cracking rock and Gloss turned his head just in time to see a wild movement of limbs before the other tribute disappeared off the side of the cliff.

He lay still, panting wildly, trying to take as much air back into his lungs as possible. A few seconds passed before he realized that the cannon hadn't sounded and he was filled with dread that he might have miscounted.

But then he saw it: eight pale fingers, gripping the edge of the cliff for dear life.

Gloss felt himself smile widely. He took his time getting up, making sure to keep the citizens of Panem at the edge of their seats until the very end. Then he leisurely strolled to the edge of the cliff and peered over, staring into the terrified eyes of the boy from 9.

"Didn't see you there," Gloss said smugly. "How's it hanging?"

He flashed a smile into the open air, pausing to give the Capitol citizens a chance to laugh at his good humor.

Gloss expected the boy from 9 to curse him, spit at him, scream, something. He didn't expect him to let out a dry sob. He didn't expect him to meet his gaze with a pathetic look in his eyes.

"Please," he whispered. His grip was slacking, his fingers sliding closer to the edge despite his best efforts to hold on. "Please don't-"

Gloss didn't let him finish. He couldn't stand the desperation in the other tribute's voice, couldn't stand the pity in his eyes. Without so much as blinking, Gloss lifted his boot-clad foot and slammed it down on the tribute boy's hand. There was a howl of pain before the other tribute let go and Gloss watched him fall, hundreds of feet down, into a crumpled heap on the rocks below.

_Canyon_. That was the word.

The cannon sounded, but Gloss couldn't avert his gaze from the mangled body below him. It was twisted, contorted in a way that he had never seen before. He kept his eyes on it, even when the hovercraft appeared and lifted it into the sky.

Blood didn't scare him. He was covered in blood after all, hardly any of it his. But there was something different about the other tribute's body, limp like a rag doll on the rocks below. It was a hard image to shake.

It was over. He had won. He had brought honor and glory to his family and District 1, just as everyone had expected. But he couldn't help but think about how close he had come to failing. He couldn't help but wonder what it felt like to be smashed against the rocks, broken into a million little pieces.

"_Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victor of the Sixty-third Hunger Games…_"


	2. Cashmere

**A/N: ** This chapter took waaaaay longer to write than I had hoped :| sorry for the wait, y'all! I always seem to get inspired on my way to/at work and then by the time I get home, I'm too tired to write. Hopefully I'll be able to get these chapters out a little quicker from now on. But I definitely WILL finish this story; I'm having way too much fun with it :] enjoy!

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**Cashmere**

The sponsor food tasted like home.

It wasn't as rich as the delicacies she had eaten in the Capitol, but it was still more than enough to keep her going. She figured it was because they were so close to the end and the price of food had shot through the roof; she was surprised she was still getting supplies from sponsors at all.

Then again, she did have Gloss on her side. What Capitol citizen would have been able to resist his charm? His platinum hair and his perfect, Capitol-engineered smile had gotten them this far, hadn't they? The Capitol had fixed his leg, too, but he was still slower than he used to be. Not that he had any reason to run anymore, not with the hundreds of fans he had made during his Hunger Games.

They typically didn't let victors his age mentor in District 1 because there were so many older, more experienced people to choose from. But they made an exception for Gloss; he was her brother after all, and the reason she volunteered in the first place. They had eaten it up in the Capitol and Gloss had played on it at every appearance, every interview, every sponsor meeting: "Keep it in the family!" he'd say, and he'd flash that perfect smile and flip his hair and everyone was putty in their hands.

Cashmere wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as daintily as she could and smiled. Their teamwork had made her everyone's target, yet here she was, only one more kill away from 'keeping it in the family.' She put down the empty container of stew that the parachute had dropped for her and moved out from under the protection of a low hanging branch. It was time to find the tribute who was keeping her from the prize and end this thing already.

Something Gloss hadn't told her is how _messy_ the games would be. He talked about them frequently, sometimes as if they were the only thing that had really mattered in his life up to this point. He spoke in a low, hushed voice full of excitement and wonder and- not fear, it couldn't have been fear, not with Gloss who wasn't afraid of anything. Regardless of what it was, his eyes would smolder and he'd bare his teeth and it was such an unsettling sight to see. But in all those times that he had turned into someone else entirely and talked about his games, he never talked about the mess.

Cashmere had watched him on television in those final moments, covered in sweat and blood, but she always figured that she would end her Hunger Games on a cleaner note because that was how she operated. All of her weapons were distance weapons, so she'd never have to get close enough to get her hands dirty. Then again, the arena didn't help any: it was a thick, humid forest with trees so tall that you couldn't see the tops, even if you squinted. The only clear land had been around the Cornucopia and the rest was all trees and vines and steamy air and downpours every third day. And there was mud. So much mud. Cashmere was covered in it, so thickly that she could hardly tell where the mud ended and her flesh began. It was in her hair, in her ears, and under her finger nails, and it was starting to drive her crazy. It seemed like every time she bathed in the rain, it only took her seconds to be covered by the mud again.

But she would be out of here soon enough, and she would scrub herself raw in the Capitol showers until she was presentable again. She was only one kill away, but she had no idea which tribute was left. The girl from 4 was supposed to keep track; that was the job they assigned her when 1, 2, and 4 had all teamed up at the beginning of the games. She was good at keeping track of the living and dead and that seemed like her only talent. That changed when she had promised that the massive boy from 11 was dead and he had stormed their camp not an hour later. He had killed the pair from 2 and Cashmere's district partner before they could take him down, then Cashmere and the boy from 4 had killed the girl for not doing her job.

Cashmere didn't know what happened to the boy from 4 after that; he had made a run for it when he saw the glimmer of her throwing knives and she had missed him by an inch on his way out. She saw him in the sky the next day, killed by some other tribute. She didn't know how, but she really didn't care, either. He was one more competitor down, and that was three canon blasts ago. She was one more canon blast away from her brother and her fans and her _shower_.

Tracking had never been her strong suit, but Cashmere preferred hunting to being hunted. With no slopes in the arena, trying to get a higher vantage point would be ineffective, so she picked a direction and started walking. If she could only figure out who the last tribute was, then maybe she could find a more efficient way of tracking and killing him or her. 1, 2, and 4 were out, obviously, and she knew that 10 and 11 were too. No one from 12 had made it this far in ten years, so it was unlikely to be either of them. 5 and 6 hadn't made it past the Cornucopia, she had seen to that personally, but that still left five different districts as possibilities.

The trees and the vines all looked the same to her and she felt like she was standing still, no matter how far she walked. Cashmere flipped her hair and flashed a smile, something she had begun to do in the arena to hide any anger or frustration that threatened to leak through her perfect façade. Only now her hair was dank and lifeless from the humidity and the mud and her smile probably looked more like a grimace to the viewers at home. What if she never found the last tribute? Had that ever happened before? What if all the viewers just forgot about them and left them in the arena forever with the rain and the trees and the poisonous animals and the _mud_?

She clasped her hands on her temples before she could stop herself. No. Everything would be fine. The Gamemakers would bring them together if it took too long for her to find the last tribute because the audience would grow restless if they didn't. And who would be able to forget about _her_ anyway? Cashmere took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair to make the audience think that that's what her hands were doing on her head in the first place. Breathe. Smile. Keep walking.

It was only about a hundred more yards of walking when she first saw it: smoke. Cashmere's heart leaped into her throat and she had to force her legs not to shoot forward into the trees immediately. Whoever the tribute was, he or she must have thought it was safe enough to start a fire now that the numbers had diminished to two. The smoke was being held in tightly by the thick canopy and it was floating through the trees in all directions, looking for a way out. Cashmere felt herself smirk and she reached for the knives at her waist, preparing for attack. Slowly, she positioned herself behind a large tree and took a deep breath. The bark was cool and damp beneath her touch from the downpour earlier that day and it calmed her nerves.

Damp.

Cashmere's eyes shot open. It had rained for hours earlier that morning, so how could any of the wood be dry enough to start a fire?

Without thinking, she launched herself towards the smoke and was met with the sight of a small, metal box. No tribute. No fire. Just a box. Her stomach lurched when she saw the smoke pouring out of it and recognized the cogs and wires from a clear package that had sat on the outskirts of the Cornucopia. She and her allies hadn't bothered with it because it would have been completely useless to almost everyone in the arena.

Except for 3.

Suddenly she was flying through the air and she hit the muddy ground with a resounding _smack_. The knife had fallen out of her hand and the boy from 3 was on top of her, his knees on her chest, a large rock held high above his head. He was even frailer than she had remembered, but his bony knees were crushing her lungs and her body refused to do anything but struggle to breathe.

Her wide eyes found the rock above his head and she realized she was going to die, going to be killed by the tiny boy from District 3 who only got a four for his training score. What would Gloss think? What would the Capitol say? Her family would be the disgrace of District 1, not even Gloss' triumph could save them from the shame.

Cashmere met the boy's gaze and gave the most pathetic whimper she could muster. "Please, you can't," she managed to choke out. She dropped her voice to a whisper, not sure if the Capitol would be able to pick up her words or not. "The baby…"

It was only for a split second, but the tribute from 3's eyes widened with a look that Cashmere didn't quite recognize. The weight on her chest lifted the tiniest bit, but it was all that she needed. With a screech, her arm shot up from the forest floor and she drove her nails across his face, catching one of his eyes with them.

His arms betrayed him and he dropped the rock to her left, hands moving to cover his face as he cried out in pain. With his weight significantly lifted off of her lungs, Cashmere managed to throw him off and take the rock for herself.

He was still covering his eyes when she brought down the stone as hard as she could on his head without hesitation. He never saw her face as she continued to lift it up and bring it down but she could hear him screaming and whimpering, even when his skull had shattered into a million pieces and his blood covered the forest floor. How was he still screaming? She heard the cannon, he must be dead, his head is _broken_ so how is he screaming?

She abruptly realized it was _her_ who was screaming and the sound died in her throat as quickly as it had come. The rock dropped with a thud beside her and she rested back on her heels, panting wildly. Screaming wasn't good. Screaming was for tributes that had gone crazy. Gloss would never approve.

So she flashed a smile, her 'keep it in the family' smile, and held her head high. Cashmere tried not to shudder when she thought about how messy it had all been and how she would most likely see repeats of that final kill played on television over and over again for the rest of her life. She tried not to think of the blood on her face and the bits of brain in her hair and how she'd have to watch it all again on the Hunger Games recap back in the Capitol

She wondered if they'd let her close her eyes.

"_Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victor of the Sixty-fourth Hunger Games…_"


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